Tyranny of the comparative

October 11, 2013|Roger Knutson | Ear to the Ground

We are rightly wary of the promises politicians make before elections, and generally do not expect them to be carried out. I am more concerned with the promises and statements made after they begin serving as legislators. Outright lies are comparatively rare, but distortion of the truth is nearly universal.

One of the major ways language can be used corruptly is by depending on comparative adjectives. We are all familiar with lower taxes as a goal. Less government regulation is made to seem desirable. Smaller government certainly most be worthwhile! Less welfare appeals to many who do not depend on it. Greater amounts of freedom and liberty are easy promises. I have noticed that in almost all of these cases, the actual amount of taxes, liberty, regulation, freedom, health care or welfare remains unspecified.

I await the first politician to specify precisely which taxes should be lower and by how much. We do, after all, need some taxes, some regulation and some freedom. Maybe we should abandon the comparative adjectives in political speech.

Maybe it is a lifetime of numbers and measurements in science that has corrupted my thinking, but I always want to ask the political person exactly how and in what way health care would be made better, or exactly how small government can be made without chaos. We actually need taxes and government agencies to function as a society. The question should be about specifics.

Be wary of politicians' use of comparative terms. Less government is not a promise. It is not even a goal. It just sounds good and might help someone get re-elected. They know that for each of us there is some part of government we do not like.

The ultimate conservatism is to go back to the founders and ask what they had in mind. I like to go back to Benjamin Franklin. In what is only an approximate quote, he said of one of the other founders, "He has nothing at heart but the good of mankind." Boy, do we need a politician with that sort of conservatism.

I realize that I am breaking my own rules, but maybe what we need is fewer lifetime politicians. In this case, I would be happy to specify which ones we could do without.

Roger Knutson is a professor emeritus of biology from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where he taught for 30 years. He holds master's degree and a doctorate from the botany department at Michigan State University.